Businesses Identified Unstable Power as Key Constraint for Growth

• Businesses Identified Unstable Power as Key Constraint for Growth

Businesses in Nigeria have identified unstable power supply as key economic constraint.

In the Business Outlook Report published by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the 1050 businesses surveyed listed insufficient power supply as number one factor hindering business growth in Nigeria with 66.2 index points. While they listed high interest rate as number two factor impeding business activities.Also, the experts identified unfavourable business/economic climate as one of the main factors holding back growth in Africa’s largest economy. Unclear economic policies and financial issues were listed as business distruptors while unfavourable political climate emerged factors that impacts business growth.

Busineses “identified insufficient power supply (66.2 points), high interest rate (57.1 points), unfavourable economic climate (54.6 points), financial problems (52.8 points), unclear economic laws (51.9 points), unfavourable political climate (46.3 points), competition (45.3 points) and insufficient demand (44.2 points) as major factors constraining business activity in the current month,” the report stated.

However, businesses were confidence economic activities will improve in the month of February, largely due to broad services and industrial sectors.

“All sectors expressed optimism on own operations in the review month. Respondents from the services sector expressed the greatest optimism on own operations, with an index of 8.1 points, followed by the industrial sector with 4.6 points, the wholesale/retail trade with 1.7 points, while the construction sector had 0.3 point,” the report shown.